Pity this blushing bride-to-be

Jane Ganahl

Published 4:00 am, Sunday, July 3, 2005

It seems the backlash to the backlash has started with the TomKat engagement. More and more stories and columns are emerging with the message: Leave the poor lovebirds alone. And "War of the Worlds" director Steven Spielberg had this to say about the global ewwwwww response to Tom Cruise's heavily publicized engagement to ingenue Katie Holmes:

"Tom lost his cool because he was deliriously happy, and now he was being punished for his public display of happiness. What Tom did on 'Oprah' was exactly what Tom did with me when he first told me about Katie Holmes. But the press didn't like the way Tom bared his soul."

I can't speak for the world (65 percent of whom, a People magazine poll said, think the entire thing is a stunt), but he's way off base about what creeps me out about this relationship -- perhaps the most highly publicized fairy-tale liaison since Charles hand-picked Di to be his virgin princess. Suspending my cynicism for a moment, I can appreciate that someone -- even Cruise -- could be excited enough about a new love to leap onto a couch and scream, "I love this woman!"

The fact that Holmes' smile looks ever more forced and glazed is troubling. But when I put myself in the place of Holmes' mother, my skin really starts to crawl. Holmes is only five months different in age from my own daughter, so I also admit to feeling empathy overload. When daughters get to be this age, it's hard not to fantasize about their future husbands, should they choose to get hitched. Will he be successful? Noble? Intelligent? Spiritually sound?

Never once do I hope for a future son-in-law who is a movie star -- I would not wish that union on my worst enemy, let alone my daughter. Holmes isn't a bad actress, but she'll only be known as Tom's girl from now on, and as half of a celebrity couple.

Would I want my daughter to hear a romantic proposal atop the Eiffel Tower? Sure. But would I want her relationship played out in the press? I can't imagine anything more awful for her -- or for Holmes' mother.

In fact, when you boil this potential match down to its pros and cons (as most mothers have done since the dawn of time, annoying their offspring in the process), it has so little going for it that if Erin were to come home with such a man, I would urge her to run -- as quickly as she can -- in the other direction.

Let's delineate, shall we?

The Pros

She will never be poor and applying for food stamps.

She really, really, really, loves him. Well, as much as a gal can after only two months of a whirlwind relationship that may or may not include sex. As she gee-whizzed to Access Hollywood: "I'm more and more in love every day. It's like, 'Wow!' "

The Cons

At 43 (as of today), Cruise is 17 years older than Holmes. If my daughter brought home a 43-year-old fiance, I'd be seriously bummed. Putting aside the creepiness of her dating someone almost old enough to be her father, I know he'd want kids right away (as TomKat are saying they do), and she has a lot of living to do first. At the very least, I'd want him to have a full physical and an excellent life insurance policy, since she's bound to outlive him by a fair distance.

Cruise has also been married and divorced twice. Hey, so have I, so I'm not casting stones there. But I'd no sooner want my daughter subjected to that kind of baggage than I would inflict it on a 26-year-old victim myself. I think in Cruise's case, it's about having a blank canvas on which to paint himself as a young man.

His ex-wife Nicole Kidman is one of the most beautiful, stylish women on the planet. Good luck living up to that example. The first time Holmes goes shopping on a Saturday morning in her sweats, sans makeup and with dirty hair, the side-by-side photos of her and the always impeccable Nic are bound to hit the tabloids.

Holmes will be an automatic stepmother to Cruise's two kids -- the older of whom, at 12, is closer to her age than Cruise is. Anyone ever thrust into this position can tell you it's a thankless, difficult role. I would not want that for my daughter either.

If I were Holmes' mother, the scariest part about this union would be watching my future son-in-law throw my daughter headfirst into a religious group that believes we are descendants of aliens. Yes, according to Scientology doctrine, a galactic ruler named Xenu brought billions of people to Earth 75 million years ago, stacked them around volcanoes and blew them up with hydrogen bombs. Their souls then clustered together and stuck to the bodies of the living.

If I were Mrs. Holmes, I would also be pained by the fact that Cruise has hired a full-time Scientology assistant to go everywhere with Holmes, even sitting in on her interviews. It's no surprise that someone came up with a "Free Katie" Web site and line of merchandise (freekatie.net). I would be its biggest salesperson.

And as far as the wedding goes? A Scientology wedding is like no other. The New York Post managed to unearth some language that will probably be used: "Rejoice you line of struggling life from eons gone, for here again, your track is sped and winged into a future fate by this, the union of a man and woman, crossing this bridge, whose child shall pace a future span."

OK, then. Pass the champagne.

I'm sorry, Mrs. Holmes. If this man I've described came up to my daughter in a bar, I think she'd have the sense to politely reject his advances. But your future son-in-law is a movie star, and stardom can buy you almost anything -- including an impressionable, blushing bride.